Onlife

Onlife #5

Here's the part where you guys write stuff and I make idle comments that are only sometimes useful. I try. Truth be told, you guys do most of the work. Case in point: Jer, the guy who wanted to know what the name of the post apocalyptic MMO that's in development. I knew diddly squat. You guys came with the truth. The title is Fallen Earth, and you could visit on the international network by clicking on the following link to Fallenearth.com. Thanks to Kris Anderson, "Secret Ending," and Otis Hill for the information. Someone called Steve also suggested that Jer might be talking about a game called Twilight War. Who knows? But thanks for the link in any event. Thanks again for everyone who responded, seriously. It's guys like you that make this worthwhile.

Someone named Jason wrote me an interesting letter last week. His problem was that, despite how interested he was in a number of upcoming MMOs, he couldn't muster the faith to spend his hard-earned money on both the software, and the monthly fee. The root of his lack of faith? The number of MMOs that, for one reason or another, eventually go south. Fair enough. Here's a an excerpt from his letter:

So you say, "Give me a quest." Well, I've got a good one for you. Pretty simple, really. Just make The voice go away. Convince me that these games are worth the extra money and the risk of having the plug pulled and the even more dangerous risk of getting addicted to the point that I'm playing for days on end without sleep until my eyes and my heart explode and I slump dead over my keyboard, the words "Just one more level" on my dying breath.

Okay, so maybe that last one is a little extreme. But still, I'd like to know what I'm missing out on, and if I should really be missing out on it

I don't know, man. I love these games, really. I can't get enough of them. But I also know that, despite this, they're deeply flawed at this point. I've known many people whose lives have suffered severely as a result of getting too into these games. Granted, most don't -- most are able to make the relevant distinctions and balance their play habits alongside meaningful lives. Screw that, even; I've met gamers who've completely stopped playing other games due to the amount of time and energy their favorite MMOs require of them. I'm guilty of that myself.

Jason, you sound like you could really get into these kinds of games. You have to ask yourself: 1) Are you willing to sacrifice the time you spend playing other games in order to earnestly delve into an MMO? Also, 2) Do you think you could balance playing this kind of game with the other aspects of your life? Sleep deprivation sucks, and so do alienated friends, significant others, and work supervisors. If don't have an addictive personality, then you're probably OK. In which case, go nuts: these games can be kind of whack a lot of the time, but they can also be incredibly fun.

It comes down to this: when you play a single-player RPG, the act of developing a character is satisfying, but the feeling quickly evaporates once you run out of things to do in the world that its designers created. In an MMO, your character always exists in the context of thousands of others, and this ensures that your feeling of satisfaction essentially never ends. Whether it's because you can kill them without breaking a sweat, or because you're constantly getting compliments because of your l33t gear, it feels good.